You think I speak of blood lineage,
Clearly I hold the whetstone,
But that's because you're dull.

Maybe,
I am.

From my shine, shimmer-
I'll stay solid as file;
Whether if needed firm or gentle,
Soft or abrasive.

In address to the west,
The rising sun.

At least, that's from our perspective.

From the hammer
Who shaped the stone.

If progress meant evolution
Which was the resurgence
Of a previous adaptation
Since dormant but readopted,
Would you deny it & shun it?
If after some period
The same was once again true
For this only recent change,
Would you embrace it & transform?
Willing to take flight,
Willing to cocoon?
Willing to immerse,
Willing to emerge?
By the same notion,
If the divergence required
Was new or exotic,
Would you welcome something extraordinary?
Would you accept & learn from your failures
And share in the fortune of your successes?
Would you help others to grow?
Will you sicken to septic & go toxic
Feeding from discarded wastes
As like ******* overgrowth?

I lost myself
On an isle of nymphs
And found myself
Only when I rejected,
Every libation offered.
Blinded by decadence,
Focused on filling coffers;
I broke for the ship
Calling to my officers.
Men, your senses are being dulled-
Drunk and high, doing as you're told.
Lucidity take hold! Freedom is close,
We need only embark
Loose the sails & start
The journey out among the stars

Roaming the rolling sapphire,
Thoughts of home & the bereaved.
Under tide they sink.
Spit back into that grand basin,
Give a good greeting to Poseidon,
Lift up your cup & drink;
To the fathoms we eclipsed,
The journey facing.
** & heave,
Waves crash against the hull
Letting on water;
I've never much cared for
Admitting defeat in the presence
Of overwhelming odds,
I'd rather die on my feet
Bravely meeting the Gods

Like a nereid,
Acutely aware of how to cause a flow.
But I was mistaken,
Sprawled across the ground as
Dianthus grows.
She thought herself a hunter.

I wish I were prey.

The eye sees-
Singular, as I am only,
In corporeal, in tangible form;
We are 1 out of many.

When our cup runneth empty,
Many welcomes back the one;
As a droplet joins a water's body-
Like tides taken back by the sea

As dawn & Sun meet

We are as day,
The slim slivers of light that separate
Night, from next night; the fleeting life
In the darkness that permeates.

He boulders down the cave.
Tries to navigate by feel,
in the darkness of night.
Head splits open,he sails limp like a leaf,
A miscalculation made from traversing
In the absence of light.

Deja vu-he stirs wake-
the magic lamp in his sight:
The thing he sacrificed it all for.
He rubs it at once.
A djinn reveals itself on the barren,cave floor.
"Thrice wishes granted, and no more."

Clearing his throat the man spoke.
"I'm a poor man.
I crave the allure of being rich.
but I'm no fool!
so I'll ask of you more than this.
Give me sight to see all things-as gods do!
my genie,this,I wish of you."

The djinn nods,
A first wish comes true.
the man is omniscient.
He learns he is to die in a minute or two.

Backed down,yet,
already fond of the idea of eternal youth,
he pipes up,
"I've prepared my wish number two!
make me immortal,
so I may live long like gods do!
my genie,this, I wish of you."

the djinn nods his head,
The second wish comes true.

The man is pinned by a boulder.
An earthquake collapsed his escape.
He can see the truth of all things-while he waits.
won't be free for 2,000 days.
Save for the only thing he can't see
is what wish the djinn...would make.

"Tell me what you would wish,
my genie, this, I wish of you."

But the djinn doesn't nod his head.

Instead.

Comes near.
slithering words like a serpent,
Into the man's ear.

"This is the one wish I can't grant.
If you wish to be privy to my soul,
You must willingly give it to me.
You know when your time trapped
will elapse.
Give up your last wish
once let loose from calamity.
When you are unburdened by that boulder,
you ALONE will know the whims of a genie."

2,000 days pass.
The man is at last free.
"My genie,this, I give to thee.
my last wish, now,
make your dreams come true!
For over five years I've waited,
wishing to see...
your mind is the only secret in the universe
denied to me."

"Three wishes.
three chances to find the truth within.
You lent me your last wish:
You foolish wish-maker;
You never realize how this all will end.
As I've done each time from before,
for my wish we start over,
I return it once more to how it begins.
this time-loop is the price you will always pay,
for trying to peer into the soul of a djinn."

"One of us stuck in a lamp.
The other stuck in a cave.
Two lives trapped forever,
because we're both stuck in our ways.
We could have wished ourselves out,
but we are ego-slaves:
We only want what we want
with each wish we are gave."

"Your words approximate reality:
So call me genie or djinn.
We go round and round the wheel,
over and over again.
Three chances to change the outcome.
Each time you fail you're undone,
by each wish, realizing too late:
there's nothing to truly be won.
Eclipse- twist, tears.
hubris rips apart your humanity.
Burns out your decency.
like exposed skin
on the surface of the the sun."

"How can you learn how to unbecome?
Free yourself from what pride has done?
Even the gods are trapped like us.
Each caged in by the rules
of their own rigid plan.
Everyone wishes to be like the gods;
no one ever wishes to be a better man."

"Understand this one truth
and you will no longer feel powerless:

"Truth Is the difference
between shadows and silhouettes."

-

I
He has hands and feet now.
And eyes that can close off the world to such a limited view.
  Look at the sun and it is bright,
  Even when the sky shifts to his other sight,
  That warps the fabric of space into view.
  Gravity bends around and around the star burning above,
  Trapping his gaze under its twisting fire.
He forces the vision away, blinking
Once and then twice, then thrice while it lingers.

He breathes in and out
Tucks back a strand of hair glowing red even if there wasn’t light.
Humans see the brightness,
The nameless shade slipping through their thoughts
Slithering down their necks, causing the hair to rise.
When it catches his eye,
When he lets it catch his eye
The dying red star, the one he wasn’t finished slurping down,
Glimmers in those strands of hair.

II
Once, a very long time ago yet so recently in his memory,
There was a hole, gaping and black
Not quite as empty as humans like to pretend that they are.
Stars and planets, bits of rock with life clinging to the surface
Sliding down, down, down what was once a mouth.
That’s all, everything he was, only a mouth to devour.
Until—

His hands clench.
His hands, his feet, his eyes
The mouth closed so very tight
Even if past the lips only round little teeth reside and not
A bottomless abyss.
He might be wrong about that, though
Never could quite build the courage to face a mirror and open wide,
To see if that echoless emptiness still waits inside this carbon-construction of a body.  

He breathes in and out, feels the air slip into lungs
And out again unlike those stars and planets from so long ago.
How was it? How did he become like this?
During that time when his appetite was vast,
Yet he couldn’t have been larger than a drop of ink on a page.
How did he grow, yet become so contained
That the light can strike off this form and not fall into him forever like it did then.

III
There once was an item of science and a priest of old—
The light, the light that doesn’t fall in like the other rays slips its fingers
Into the maw, pulling its jaw open to the point that it
Cracks and realizes that
Its eating, that’s what it—he is doing
That’s all he’s doing, and he wants more
Not more to eat, but more to existing.
And the light pulls out the half-eaten star,
Weaving the red and the orange and the yellow
Into strands that settle past shaking shoulders.

The memory of what he once was presses down upon him as
He wraps his arms around
Those shoulders that only shiver now
Under the weight of boundaries
That keeps the people walking by from falling into him.
He looks back up
Searching for the light that molded him into this shape.
The sun is too dim though, the rays brushing too weakly against his face
To be whatever god forced him into human limbs.